


Daybreak

by Sholio



Series: Pistol Packin' Mama [3]
Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Multi, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 20:11:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9920546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: This was written a few months back for the prompt:"The Lights in Suburbia" universe, the first time she's gone on a solo mission and Daniel/Jack have to get by without her.In this 'verse, Peggy, Daniel, and Jack get together in the season 1 & 2 gap, and things kinda go AU from there.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm updating my fic-snippet file and realized that I never put this one on my [short fic masterlist](http://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/155235627128/2016-promptficshort-fics) from last year. Probably because I meant to post it to AO3 and never did. So if you're following me on Tumblr, you've probably read this already. Also, I have now put these fics in a series so they're all together.

Peggy left for Paris on a Friday morning. It was nothing unusual, chasing leads on a case involving old HYDRA ties to smuggling operations during the war. The only unusual thing was that she'd be gone for a few days, and Daniel tried not to think about how that might change things around the office.

He still hadn't made a decision on whether to take the L.A. job. He kept deferring the decision, though he knew he couldn't put it off much longer. It made all the sense in the world for his career. If he stayed in New York, there was nowhere to move up to, only Jack's current position, and Jack showed no particular signs of being dislodged.

The question he hadn't quite been able to answer to his own satisfaction was: _Do I have a reason to stay?_ This thing with Peggy and Jack was still tentative and new, and they were all negotiation its fragile boundaries with exquisite care. It didn't help that all three of them had to work to keep it out of sight at the office. Jack in particular was intensely concerned about the effect on his career from even a hint of impropriety, Daniel knew. Neither he nor Peggy had ever been to Jack's uptown apartment. When they met, it was either at Daniel's place, or (much more often, since there was a great deal more room and a better ambiance) at the Stark residence. This meant that Peggy's roommate Angie, by necessity, had been taken into their confidence -- which Jack hated, and Daniel didn't feel that much better about, but so far she seemed to be discreet.

But Jack at the office had been even harder than usual to deal with. Peggy and Daniel had a running joke that they never knew if they were going to get "good Jack" or "bad Jack" -- the playful, teasing version, or the domineering boss who seemed to be defending his borders, emotional and otherwise, even more aggressively than before they entered into a clandestine relationship with him. Daniel (sort of) got where he was coming from. Jack, of all of them, believed he had the most to lose. Maybe he did. But that didn't make it any easier to deal with.

And then there was the nagging worry in the back of Daniel's mind that their flames burned brighter than his ever could. Peggy was destined for great things; there was no doubt of that. And Jack seemed to be aiming for a career in the political heights. What did Daniel have to offer that could compete with that?

So that was the situation on even a normal week. And now Peggy was out of town. It shouldn't have made a difference, Daniel thought -- and yet it did. He and Jack were edgier around each other, trading barbs that had a sharper bite. Somehow Peggy seemed to balance them; she had a way of walking Jack down, and pulling Daniel up, so they all seemed to relate to each other on a similar level, even if Jack was technically their boss. Without Peggy in the room, Daniel found himself resorting to a more aggressive defense against Jack's attempts to run roughshod over him.

Peggy called in the evening, to let them know she'd gotten in all right. Daniel took the call. He and Jack were both working late, having nowhere else to be.

"How's Paris?" Daniel asked when her familiar accent came down the line.

"Exhausting thus far, but perhaps that's only because I just spent an entire day on a trans-Atlantic flight and I'm now trying to sound intelligent in a language I haven't spoken in years."

"Knowing you, I'm sure you're doing it well."

She laughed softly. "To be honest, I would rather be coping with the appalling tea in the SSR canteen."

He couldn't help it if his heart did a little flip. He knew Peggy well enough to understand what she meant and decode the oblique compliment. "We'll keep it hot for you."

"That's half the problem, you know."

Daniel grinned at nothing in particular. "So," he said, looking up at the glass wall of Jack's office, and Jack's head bent over his desk, "you want to talk to Jack for a minute?"

"I suppose there's no help for it." 

But there was laughter in her voice, and Daniel smiled as he switched her to Jack's line. "Peggy for you," he said, and hung up before hearing Jack's response.

Rather than going back to his paperwork, he rested his chin in his hand and watched Jack through the glass. The difference in Jack when he realized it was Peggy on the phone was obvious and immediate; he straightened up, becoming visibly more animated. There was a genuine smile on his face, the kind of smile Daniel hadn't seen all day.

_That's the difference she makes._

But where, he wondered, did that leave the two of them? Without Peggy, the world seemed a little less bright and soft, a little sharper around the edges. He found himself already having to concentrate to remember the things he actually _liked_ about Jack. 

.... Well, okay, that was every day, pretty much. But somehow it helped a lot, being able to see Jack through Peggy's eyes -- to see Peggy interacting with Jack, the way she smiled at him, the way she leaned a hip against the edge of his desk and passed him a file with neatly manicured bright-red fingernails stroking off the light blond fuzz on the back of his hand ... 

He'd started drifting a little, and when Jack raised his head and caught Daniel's eyes through the glass, it made him jerk a little. Jack smiled briefly, and Daniel was startled into smiling back.

Jack looked away an instant later, like he'd been caught, and Daniel took a minute to get himself together. It was late, and he was just now realizing how tired he was, and how much his shoulders ached. He reached for his crutch and headed off to the file room to put away the reports he'd been working on.

He was able to lose himself in this, the peaceful detailwork of putting every file precisely in its place, lining up the tabs and organizing anything else that looked a little out of place as he passed it. When he turned and saw Jack lounging in the doorway, he jumped.

Jack grinned. "Situational awareness, Sousa?"

"I'm busy."

Jack, of course, paid no attention to this, strolling into the narrow aisle between file boxes with his hands shoved in his pockets and his shoulders in a casual slouch. "Sounds like Carter's having fun in Paris."

"Or hating every minute of it. Hard to tell."

"Oh, she loves it." Jack's mouth tilted in a sideways smile. "You know she does. Traveling, seeing new things, meeting new people and shooting at them ... that's Carter in a well-groomed little nutshell."

There was an odd undertone of ... not bitterness exactly, but something Daniel couldn't quite put his finger on. Not quite envy, not quite spite, not nostalgia or loss ... but something that shared elements with all of those things.

And it hit him hard, then, that some of the things he'd been thinking about, worrying about, weren't just him. He'd thought that Peggy and Jack were a good match for each other -- two beautiful and charismatic people, their torches burning brightly in the world. It had never really occurred to him that Jack might envy Peggy or fear that her ambitions might leave _him_ behind.

"What's the matter with you?" Jack said, and Daniel realized he'd stared a little too long.

"Nothing. Just ..." _Seeing you, maybe, for the first time._

Jack's smile quirked again, a little cocky, a little hesitant. _God,_ Daniel thought, as exasperated as he was charmed, because he really did love the annoying jerk (for some damned reason) and he wasn't sure if he'd actually realized that before. He closed the space between them and gave Jack a fast kiss, after darting a glance at the doorway to be sure they weren't seen.

He wasn't expecting to be spun around and pushed up against the filing cabinets. Jack grinned even as he kissed him, hard and wanting. One of his hands slid under the tails of Daniel's shirt, sliding over the skin above his hipbones; the other fist was wound up in Daniel's jacket.

"Are you nuts?" Daniel whispered breathlessly, when he was able to break free long enough to get a word in.

Jack let him go, but only long enough to close the door and lock it. "Safe now?"

"Oh God," was Daniel's only response, as Jack pushed him into the stacks of shelves.

There was still a ghost of Peggy between them, a Peggy-shaped interstice. But they were starting to fit. It was the first time he'd really known that they _could_ fit.


End file.
